Service providers/operators typically provide numerous voice and/or data services to subscribers using wireline and/or wireless communications networks. Examples of such services include cellular telephony, access to the Internet, gaming, broadcasting or multicasting of audio, video, and multimedia programming, etc. User equipment such as cell phones, personal data assistants, smart phones, text messaging devices, global positioning system (“GPS”) devices, network interface cards, notebook computers, and desktop computers, may access the services provided by the communications networks over an air interface with one or more base stations.
Operators use offline and online charging functions to keep track of the charges incurred by each device for using the various services. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (“3GPP”/“3GPP2”) standards groups have defined a set of specifications that may be used to implement online charging systems and offline charging systems to cover charging in the various network domains (e.g., a circuit switching network domain, a packet switching network domain, and/or a wireless domain), IP multimedia subsystems (“IMS”), and emerging 3G/OMA application services.
However, operators are experiencing increasing volume of data usage from the growth in smart phones and other mobile devices. This growth is putting a strain on the operators' network resources and results in either a reduced subscriber experience, due to an overloaded network resulting in congestion and poor data bandwidth, or in expensive roll-out of additional network capacity for the operator.